


Goroth

by NortheasternWind



Series: Long Was the Way [3]
Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind
Summary: Talion learns of elven telepathy, and a little something else.





	Goroth

“Tar Goroth…”

“ _Is dead_ ,” Celebrimbor finished from within Talion. “ _And we are easily able to prevent Zog from attempting to revive him again._ ”

“No, that’s not it.” Talion ground the whetstone over his blade. He had been thinking about this ever since the balrog’s demise, and anything that distracted him from it was a welcome reprieve. Celebrimbor emerged from Talion’s body in a flash of silver, ruined features bent into a frown.

“No balrog would follow us, whatever power we held. They have only one master, and even Sauron could not possibly—”

“Getting closer, but that’s still not it.” Talion copied Celebrimbor’s expression, though he kept his eyes trained on his sword. “I have never been in the presence of a balrog before, but somehow the heat felt… familiar.”

“A balrog is the same type of creature as Sauron, though they lack his cunning. You felt his flame at the Black Gate.”

“I did,” Talion agreed, putting the whetstone down. “But when we faced Tar Goroth, I felt… something else.”

There were words for what he’d felt, oh yes, but Talion would not utter them aloud to Celebrimbor; the wraith who sneered at loyalty and softness, who insisted that Talion’s brothers and sisters at Minas Ithil were expendable and worth no more than the orcs they enslaved now. This was too serious for him to bear Celebrimbor’s ridicule, and though Talion found it in himself to mention it he was not sure how far he could elaborate. Talion had felt…

“Was it grief?”

He looked up at the wraith’s expression— impassive, but not unusually so. His shriveled face made him nearly impossible to read, something Talion hadn’t thought to resent until now.

“...Why would I grieve for a balrog, of all creatures?” Talion asked, unnerved. For Celebrimbor’s guess was dead-on: Tar Goroth burst from the molten stone and burned through his senses, and brought with it a terrible, pounding fear and—

Fear was no stranger, nor inappropriate under the circumstances. But that shattered, _wailing_ sadness...

The light in Celebrimbor’s eyes flickered.

“...Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I owe you an apology.”

Talion blinked, stunned. Celebrimbor owed him an apology for many things, but Talion could not see how any of them were related to this particular conversation. “For what?”

“The grief you felt then was mine.”

Talion actually straightened up in his shock. “Yours?”

Celebrimbor merely stared at him for some moments, unreadable as ever, before reaching a hand out and—

_He was little more than a child, already homesick and missing the mother he had left behind, and he could barely fit in his hiding place under his father’s cot. Distantly he felt the bare grass upon his face, but he paid it no mind, straining instead with his spirit to bear witness to the battle raging nearby._

_Such a flame the creatures were, and that tore at his young heart the hardest: flames were gentle warmth, flames were hard work and enjoyable activity, flames were his family and his guardians and safety. But even at this distance the Dark Lord’s flame beat mercilessly against his soul, smothering the flames of his brethren— his greatest protectors, his patriarch and grandpa— until—_

Talion reeled backwards as Celebrimbor released him, heart pounding with a terror that was not his. He knew helplessness all too well, but to have wept and trembled so… The memory of the younger, more innocent Celebrimbor shuddered within him.

“...My grandfather was fey and foolish at the end,” Celebrimbor said. “He had never seen a balrog before, and believed his own flame mighty enough to topple theirs. But he was only one and the balrogs many, and they overwhelmed him.”

Talion clutched at his chest, gulping in air. His grandfather— of course Celebrimbor had a grandfather. Elves were born just as Men were. He had ancestors. He had been a child once. But to face so many of those creatures at such a young age...

“...Your grandfather was not a very wise man,” he settled on, voice hoarse.

The wraith barked out a short, ill-humored laugh, the only kind that seemed to suit him. “No, he was not. But I will not burn up and out as he did. I will cleanse Sauron’s flame from Middle-earth once and for all.

“I will not be like him,” he repeated distantly, staring past Talion over the blasted landscape of Mordor. “I will not perish so ignominiously, before I have accomplished anything of value. I will not leave my task to others. I will not fail as he failed.”

Talion held his breath. Celebrimbor’s unfortunate passion for their task dogged Talion’s every step, but he preferred it to this— brooding. “You mourned him.”

“He was not always so cruel,” Celebrimbor said in response, becoming the indifferent wraith Talion knew. “But it matters not. Balrogs are quite unique as the beings of Middle-earth go, and the presence of one drew out the memory of others. With Tar Goroth dead you need not fear the stain of my emotions upon yours again.”

“I would bear them with you if you asked it of me.”

The wraith blinked, but that was the only sign of surprise Talion caught before he vanished entirely, possibly feeling the offer too foolish to dignify with an answer.

Talion sighed and returned the whetstone to its work upon his blade. Someday, perhaps.

**Author's Note:**

> listen if the game can give Gil-Galad's spear to Celebrimbor then I can make up osanwe rules for my own convenience


End file.
